GTA: Randomly Generated Sandbox Adventure

Epicohnoes!

Here's my idea. The gimmick is that each time you play it, it will be an an entirely different experience. You play as an unnamed, randomly generated (Possibly Customizable like in SR2?), non-speaking character who is rather mysterious with an unexplained backstory, sort of like Claude in GTA III, but only even more vague and mysterious. You would play in a generic city like Anywhere City or III's LC, with no clear references to real cities.

The character is not the only random thing. The gangs and missions would also be completely random. To do this, the game would be scripted to pick from a limited number of logical options for parts of missions based on story decisions and game progression/the player's skill level, with just enough options not to get repetitive. To get the random gangs effect, the gangs would all speak in a way that avoids saying the gang name, which is also random. They would speak vaguely, but not vague enough to be unrealistic. Each gang would have members that dress the same, and drive the same cars. When the gang's name has to be said, it is done through text.

In addition, the game would be completely sandbox-style. There would be many gangs, all randomly generated, which all have relations with each other, be it rivalry or partnership. The player may choose to help one gang, while betraying the other, therefore making the betrayed gang an enemy of the player.

Girish

This sounds alright only on paper. The random character and gangs will not gel well with the GTA audience since that isolates the player from getting immersed in the storyline and the supporting characters. As seen in GTA IV, Rockstar has been trying to get the player to connect with the in-game characters whereas your idea, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of that. To cut a long story short, randomly generated characters/missions/gangs will not necessarily increase the replay value of the game. R* would be better off creating a new game for those different missions/gangs instead of incorporating everything into a single game.

Grand Theft Auto Dude

Not worth the time it would take to create. You would get a much better experience with a proper character with a proper story, proper gangs and a detailed city. You'd just end up with a bunch of generic missions and characters that wouldn't be very fun at all, and it'd take ages to develop.

mkey82

Firstly, the random gang idea wouldn't work (IMO). You need set gangs with their trademarks and features. You could possibly design a larger number of gangs (like 25) and use a random number of them every time you start a new game. Like 10 out of 25. Every time a different bunch. They would all have to be detailed and have their backgrounds set, with well defined inter gang relations.

On the story issue, this is the problem because the most game that don't have a set storyline have some (rather low) amount of different missions that you complete now and then in a random fashion. This would not be good for GTA IMO. You need that cinematic feeling to the story.

A way around it would be to have a larger amount of missions coded (repetition effect will come into play here) and some sort of branching system. I.e. you could have at some given time two or more characters that need you for some job. Then if you choose one of them, the other(s) might get pissed, so they become hostile and thusly the game evolves in one direction. The next time you play, if you choose the other guy, then some other story would unveil. All of this assumes your would have a number of different endings.

IMO this s a good idea, but hasn't been implemented successfully up to now (AFAIK). It's rather complicated and it would require a lot of work from the story writers. And for what? Say you had five different stories with five different endings. Most people would complete one or two of those and afterwards move to something else.

To all of the guys saying that this idea is too complicated and confusing - it's not so only becasue *you* can't comprehend.